Caltrans Worker’s Killer Faces Prison : Courts: Man who was on PCP when he hit Callie Joel Buser pleads no contest to vehicular manslaughter.

An Antelope Valley man who was on PCP when his truck hit and killed a Caltrans worker July 29 on the Antelope Valley Freeway faces a 10-year state prison sentence after pleading no contest to vehicular manslaughter Monday in Lancaster.

Scott Ellis III, 42, of the Lake Los Angeles area, will probably serve about five years of his sentence because of credit for good behavior and work. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious second-degree murder charge.

That angered the widow of Callie Joel Buser, 55, of Canoga Park, who was a surveying supervisor for the California Department of Transportation. Norma Buser said Ellis should have been tried on the murder charge.

“In a few years, he’s going to be out to kill again,” she said. “I have the rest of my life without my husband.”

The district attorney’s office in August upgraded its original manslaughter charge against Ellis to second-degree murder after discovering he had been involved in an earlier injury accident while under the influence of PCP. That incident occurred on the Harbor Freeway on April 7, 1991, but he was never prosecuted.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Ogden, who handled the Buser case, said Ellis would not face much more prison time with a second-degree murder conviction. Ogden said getting such a conviction could have been difficult because key testimony would have been inadmissible.

“Let’s face it, these are human tragedies that can never be resolved to the satisfaction of all involved,” Ogden said. “We can’t bring Mr. Buser back. We live with the possible. If this were a perfect world, defendants would not be allowed to plead to lesser offenses.”

The plea bargain was reached Monday before the start of the second day of Ellis’ preliminary hearing in Antelope Municipal Court. Ellis, who remained in custody without bail, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 10 by Lancaster Superior Court Judge Thomas Stoever.

According to court records, Ellis took six tablets of acetaminophen with codeine on the morning of July 29. While at work washing cars in Pasadena, about three hours before the crash, he smoked part of a PCP-laced cigarette to ease the pain of a back injury.

Witnesses reported that Ellis was driving slowly and erratically on his way home from work. At about 1:05 p.m., Ellis’ truck swerved into the center median, then cut across three lanes of traffic to the right shoulder of the freeway south of Soledad Canyon Road, striking Buser.

Buser, who was painting survey markings, had only worked for Caltrans since May, 1991. He was the 91st Caltrans worker or contractor to be killed on the highways in the last 20 years. He also was the fifth to die within three months, all in drug- or alcohol-related crashes.

Ellis had been addicted to PCP since suffering a back injury in 1987, and had been in several drug-rehabilitation programs, records show. He also had been taking excessive amounts of codeine, a prescription drug.

Had prosecutors convicted Ellis on second-degree murder, the sentence would have been 15 years to life. But Ogden predicted Ellis would only have served seven or eight years, half of the minimum.

Ogden also said Ellis’ wife and psychiatrist would not have testified because state law would not have compelled them to do so. Ogden said that without their testimony, which represents the strongest available evidence to show Ellis knew his driving was a danger, obtaining a second-degree murder conviction would have been difficult.